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6月25日 Who says I've been idle"Sorrell!" Dalmara almost cried out when her husband finally came back to their small house. "Thank Gods, you are back! Allen is…" Feeling something wrong with the man she had known since childhood, she staggered with her words. Sorrell had his head slightly bowed; his blue eyes blazed in barely contained fury while his lips twisted in an almost mad grin.
"What is it?" Dalmara carefully asked, but received no answer. Her husband seemed to be lost in his thoughts, and the woman felt her mouth going try. "My love?"
With startling speed, Sorrell snapped his head up, looking at his wife as if noting her presence for the first time, and all expressions on his face vanished without trace. "What?" he asked with all the innocence Dalmara had ever seen.
"You… I mean… Allen, he’s been sleeping for all day." Dalmara found the words with some difficulty. "He opened his eyes several times but wouldn’t eat." Pausing for a moment, she added: "Do you think this has something to do with…you know, what we saw yesterday, before they came?"
"I don’t know." Sorrell answered bluntly.
"Are you all right, my love?" Dalmara asked with no small alarm. "You feel strange…"
"I’m fine." The husband said expressionlessly. "I met Mal in the street. He called me Sore, like he did when we were still friends."
"…And?" Waiting for something more but receiving none, the wife prompted. But that’s all Sorrell would say, as he turned away and sat on a chair, silent.
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In a small and dark room on the second floor of the building adjacent to where Sorrell and Dalmara lived, a young man in black leather leaned over the window, overlooking the street and searching for anything worth special attention.
Summers in this city were always dominated by the flaming orb brought into the world of Toril by Selune before the creation of life. And the powerful walls of Zhentil Keep, thick and tall, made things worse by blocking the cool wind from the Moonsea. This particular room faired no better with most of its windows always closed, so the young man's long black hair clung to his head, soaked by sweat.
Still, though constantly tempted, he kept the habit of never taking off his armor, on which his colleague had made more than a few unpleasant comments. "Never caught off guard by special things", he explained to his fellow spy each time, and was always retorted by "No such thing will come our way, wistful dog". Having served in the Zhentarim for more than five years, and having survived on the hostile streets of Zhentil Keep for his two decades, this man knew full well how quickly things could turn ugly and bloody. The situation may change faster than the mood of Unberlee.
And now, the special thing finally came in the form of three men, one of whom was seldomly seen anywhere outside his hidden stronghold.
"By the Ebony Sunshine…" he murmured in surprise.
"What did you say?" His partner, wearing only a blue shirt, asked with narrowed eyes.
"I said by the Lord’s Son, we have some unexpected guests." The man smoothly corrected.
"What? Who?" The other man was mildly interested.
"Come look for yourself." The armored spy moved away from the half opened window. "I would find out your leather if I were you. We should prepare for trouble." Drawing his dagger and checking the straps of his armor, the man did as he suggested.
"You sensitive rat," his partner retorted, "A mere city guard can make you go tense like a bow string." Drowsily he made his way to the window and glimpsed at the street below. Seeing what drew the attention of the "sensitive rat", his reaction was just as agitated.
"By the six hundred and sixty-six layers of the Abyss, that’s the Imperceptor himself, or I’m a dead man! We must inform…" His words died in his throat with a wet gurgle, as his companion buried a dagger in his back to the hilt in one fluent motion.
"And you are a dead man." The rogue in leather corrected coldly, and twisted his blade, left and right. "But you are right, we must inform someone." Letting his hated comrade crumble face down onto the floor, the spy removed his seemingly worthless ring, then whispered a word to it, and the ring enlarged into a circle of copper wire. Considering for a moment his choice of words, he said through the circle: "The Imperceptor comes to Sorrell, in the house now, three of them, no extra escort in sight, need reinforcement at position twenty-nine." Having two more words allowed to say, he added: "Make haste!" And with its magic exhausted, the copper wire crumbled to dust.
Fulfilling his duty, the man dragged the corpse away and crouched behind the window, waiting impatiently. "Now we get you, old dog." He murmured to himself. "What a lucky day for me…"
"Lucky indeed." A cold voice sounded behind the rogue, carrying with it a self-assured sense of power and state. Turning back slowly, the spy saw a man in his fifties, dressed in an ornate robe of black and gold, his hands folded behind his back.
The Archmage himself had come.
"Your highness." The rogue forgot his place for an instance, and hastily knelt on one knee. "I’m honored…"
"Get up. We have no time for that." Manshoon said with a wave of his hand, and the younger man hesitantly stood. "I consider the respect I receive from my lessers only a reminder of whom they are, anyway." Looking into the spy’s eyes, he asked: "You are sure of what you saw?"
The rogue, though experienced with the deceits and intimates of the underworld, could only nod enthusiastically under the unnerving gaze. "Y…yes, my lord, it is him."
"Good." The Archmage returned an approving nod. Nudging the corpse with his boot, the wizard asked: "And this?"
Encouraged by the hard-earned praise, the rogue answered proudly, "Another finger lost to the Black Hand."
"Well done." Manshoon grinned in cold malice, "Now, let’s hack off the thumb."
"Command me, Lord Archmage." The spy asked eagerly, his words thick with anticipation. "My blade is yours."
"Indeed, and I expect no less." The founder of the Black Network answered cooly. After a moment's consideration, he slowly nodded. "They still know you as one of the Network and would expect no treachery if you give them an existing one. Enter the house with haste and alarm the Imperceptor of Sorrell betraying them to the Church of Cyric."
"But are they going to believe me, with Sorrell himself in presence, certainly able to counter my words?" The spy carefully expressed his doubt.
"They will. An agent of mine has seen to it." Manshoon answered with uttermost confidence."Just remember to call him Sore, his nickname. Once you have their complete trust, whatever happens, try your best to keep them in the house. I will summon reinforcements and lead the final attack myself." Putting an ice-cold hand on the shoulder of the rogue, the Archmage said solemnly: "But our success all depends on yours, soldier. You must not fail me."
"I shall not, my lord." Despite the invulontary shudder brought to him by physical contact with Manshoon, the spy assured the wizard with all the seriousness and enthusiasm he could muster.
"Now go." Manshoon waved dismissively, turning away from his pawn to stare through the window down at the tiny house. Hurriedly the rogue retrieved his dagger from the back of his former comrade, wiped it clean on the disgusting blue shirt, and sped away to do the archmage's bidding. He felt light-headed, the rush of events left him little time to consider his action carefully, and suddenly he feared he would fail the ruthless wizard and suffer a fate unimaginable to a petty thief.
No. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself. Fooling his partner had been easy, so fooling another bunch of Xvim worshipers wouldn't be too difficult. All he needed to do was talk to them and slip away when his comrades charge in. Perhaps he could remain a spy in the network of spies after all these and, who knows, maybe play a role in the downfall of Fzoul himself.
Before he could dwell long on the pleasant thought of twisting a poisoned dagger in the gut of the hated Fzoul, the rogue found himself in front of his destination, the tiny, insignificant house, where someone's life would end while his own glorious future would begin. Fighting down an impulse to glance back up at where he crouched moments ago, in fear of irritating the Archmage, he rehearsed one of the routine lies prepared by experienced guys in the Network for spies like him, for emergency situations like this. Taking another deep breath, he knocked on the door, twice, once, twice, clear but urgent.
The door opened almost instantly and, to the spy's surprise, it was the Imperceptor himself who stood behind it. Arms crossed in front of his chest, just above the Eye of the Tyrant symbol on his breast plate, the powerful cleric stared at the unexpected visitor. It was obviously a feat of both courage and zeal that a worshiper of Xvim dared, regardless of his status in the Black Hand's clergy, carry such a symbol openly on the streets of Zhentarim Keep, an action considered blasphemy by the Dark Sun church. And Cyric himself had made it clear that blasphemy could only be met with agonizing death.
The spy was never very keen with religion, and his worship of Cyric was barely skin-deep. However, when his gaze fell on the emerald, lidless eye symbol, he still felt a surge of anger, and a sudden impulse to scream and claw at the man he was supposed to deceive and deter. Fighting down such ridiculous feelings with slight difficulty, he quickly glanced into the room beyond the wooden door. Dim light from a small window barely lit the tiny space, while the four men and a women seemed to fill every bit of it. Dalmara and Sorrell were easily recognized. With four tendays of spying on them it would have been quite difficult to mistake the petty couple for someone else. The husband was sitting on one of the two crudely crafted chairs in their possession, while the other one was for the moment unoccupied, obviously reserved for the Imperceptor. Strange, that Sorrell, more peasant than priest, could have gathered so much insolence to sit as equals with the most powerful cleric of the Order of Xvim.
Something important and complicated was taking place here, the rogue had no doubt. However, he couldn't spare any bit of his wits to unravel anything deeper. But no secret was going to remain so for very long, anyway. In perhaps a hundred-count the room would be filled with magical energy, and there would be no hope of escape for the heretics of Xvim, nor for their secrets.
"Drake?" The high priest's expression changed from initial surprise and confusion to anger. "By the Gauntlet of Bane, what are you doing here?" A quick glance up and down the street found no sign of hostile eyes, Gillian pulled the spy into the room and slammed the door shut.
"You are not supposed to make any report in this fashion, Drake." The Imperceptor glared at the rogue. "What is it?"
"I..." Suddenly realizing he was called by his mission code, the spy felt another wave of uncertainty. Few knew his mission code, and surely not Gillian himself. And yet the Imperceptor called him by that code almost without thinking. This by itself was nothing, but if Gillian could get to know the supposedly secret mission code, then maybe he could know something more. What if the Imperceptor knew his true identity as a servant of Cyric? What if all these were the components of a trap designed to capture him? What if the Archmage was a fake, sending him to his doom? Numerous possibilities swirled in his brain, making him want to scream.
"Quit fooling around and speak, or I'll inquire your mind by myself." Gillian quickly lost patience. The words snapped the rouge back to reality, but with half his mind blank and the other half a mess, he lost the elaborate and flawless lie he had been practicing. Instead the spy only managed to speak with a weak voice: "I eh...he is...betrayer! Sore will betray you! He is in truth..." But before he could continue with his pathetic accussion, Sorrell suddenly burst like a volcano. The petty worshiper of Xvim seemed to be daydreaming all the while and just awakened. Like a cornered beast, he fixed a pair of crazy eyes first on the spy, then on the Imperceptor. As if realizing the identity of the high priest for the first time, his body stiffened, his hands clutched into fists, and his eyes widened even more. With a foaming mouth, which made Sorrell identical to a mad dog, he bellowed in primal rage and exclaimed: "The Dark Sun burn you to ash!"
Startled silence filled the room, a flicker of alarm flahed on the face of the Imperceptor. He started to make for the door, but it was too late.
The room became an inferno.
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Manshoon watched as Gillian pulled the petty spy into the house of the petty couple, and gave the ignorant boy a headstart of twenty counts, then he began to cast.
First he chanted a powerful abjuration, and a sphere of prismatic color sprung into being, obscuring everything within ten paces from his body from any outside influence or divination. Following it was a equally powerful transmutation, one that forced time to cease its flow. Halfway through the spellcasting, the Archmage produced a tiny hourglass from the folds of his ornate robe and tossed it into the air. Instead of free-falling to the ground, the hourglass floated, fully five feet from hitting the floor, suspended by some invisible force. When his chanting reached its peak and the spell took effect, the sand in the hourglass ceased to flow, a wild dog wandering in front of the building froze in mid-step, and the annoying dust on the street was no longer stirred by the hot breeze.
Knowing the time stop wouldn't last long, Manshoon continued his spellcasting. With the rapidness and precision that only a master of the Art could achieve, he called into being five tiny flaming orbs. The pea-sized fiery balls floated before his hands in a row, ready to shoot out of the room, sail through the air, pass the small window, into the house of their victims, and detonate together with roaring flame and powerful explosion. Unlike ordinary fireballs accessible to any middle level spellcasters, each of these were augmented to piece almost any ward, be it powered by arcane or divine source. They also bore more magical energy than the original spell, and would deal the most terrible damage possible. No one could survive his trap. Not even myself, if unprepared, Manshoon thought with amusement. But then, he was always prepared.
With one last spell to cast, the Archmage waited for the time stop effect to terminate. When it did, the sand in the hourglass suddenly began flowing anew, and the flaming orbs shot forth with unerring precision and startling speed. Quickly calculating the perfect moment, Manshoon waited a little longer, then summoned primal arcane power inside the home of Sorrell, and shaped it to hug every inch of the house from within. The altered wall of force materialized barely an instant after the fireballs entered the building, assuring the destruction to be known only to the Archmage, and of course, those unfortunate individuals caught within.
As he intended, the outside world was oblivious to the devastating explosion, a telltale bright flash coming out of the tiny window was the only clue, but no one was close enough and careful enough to notice.
With a satisfied grin, the Archmage of Zhentil Keep murmured a conjuration, and a brilliant door, composed of pure light, opened behind him. Turning around, Manshoon muttered: "Good job, soldier." Then he stepped through the doorway and vanished.
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Allen awakened from a strange dream of entwined blue-white light and shadow into a world of bright light and roaring flame. He had never seen or felt anything like this, but he knew it hurt a bit. The air was too warm and the flare stung his eyes. Flame surrounded him, but when he extended his hand to touch the tongues of fire, they were extinguished, only to resume their dance.
When his curiosity played out, he realized his mom and dad were nowhere to be seen.
And there was someone else, seemingly everywhere, above and below and around. Allen twisted his small head to look this way and that, looking for his parents as well as the unseen being. Though most of the room was painfully bright, the flame threw shadows here and there. And these shadows congregated and formed a figure.
It was a woman with purple eyes, her gaze more piercing than a rapier. She wore no cloth, but her flowing black hair covered her form like a cloak, and her exposed skin was black and smooth like obsidian. She was taller than Allen's mother, but seemed to occupy much more space, and the room felt too small to contain her.
The woman knelt in front of Allen, a cold smile on her lips. Allen looked into her dark pupils and saw nothing. Or rather, nothingness.
"Look at this." The woman whispered sadly, "What have they done to a pretty boy."
"Are you aunt Swan?" Allen asked. His father told him many stories of his aunt Swan, a very brave and powerful magical woman who saved the world many times.
"No, my dear." The woman replied. "But I'm here to help you. Bad people want to hurt you. They hurt your dad and mom. But they can't hurt you now."
"You can help dad and mom too?" Allen felt nervous when he thought about his parents. Where are they?
"I will try. But you must also help me."
"I help you. I'm very strong." Allen promised.
"Yes, you are, my dear." The woman nodded. "Now I have to leave. You have given me your word. When I call, you will answer."
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